# Revisiting "faster telemetry" for ASL3 **URL:** \ **Category:** AllStarLink\ **Tags:** asl3\ **Created:** [July 9, 2026, 10:17pm UTC](https://community.allstarlink.org/t/revisiting-faster-telemetry-for-asl3/24752 "2026-07-09T22:17:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![KK6QMS](https://community.allstarlink.org/user_avatar/community.allstarlink.org/kk6qms/32/1356_2.png) [@KK6QMS](https://community.allstarlink.org/u/KK6QMS)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2026, 10:17pm UTC](https://community.allstarlink.org/t/revisiting-faster-telemetry-for-asl3/24752/1 "2026-07-09T22:17:41Z")
Revisiting this topic since the last posts I see on it are over 10 years old. Is there any faster/easier way to speed up telemetry these days? ---
**Author:** ![N2DYI](https://community.allstarlink.org/user_avatar/community.allstarlink.org/n2dyi/32/1712_2.png) [@N2DYI](https://community.allstarlink.org/u/N2DYI)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2026, 12:16am UTC](https://community.allstarlink.org/t/revisiting-faster-telemetry-for-asl3/24752/2 "2026-07-10T00:16:11Z")
In another topic, someone posted a script that recursively speeds up all the sound files using the tempo function of SoX. IIRC, it had a couple of problems, mainly that it did silence reduction after, not before time compression, which caused some weird behavior. I've been meaning to look at that and optimize it more, for example, silence reduction on both of the start and end, not just the start, and changing the order of trimming silence and time compression. Would probably also be a good idea to copy the entire tree to a custom directory and enable the custom sound flag so that it doesn't get nuked during Package updates. I wish we could just farm all the telemetry messages out to a local TTS engine. Would make it easier to customize strings and make things flow better. It would also be much easier to replace the voice, if you, like many of us, don't like Allison. This currently involves replacing lots of pre-recorded samples. ---
**Author:** ![KK6QMS](https://community.allstarlink.org/user_avatar/community.allstarlink.org/kk6qms/32/1356_2.png) [@KK6QMS](https://community.allstarlink.org/u/KK6QMS)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2026, 4:51am UTC](https://community.allstarlink.org/t/revisiting-faster-telemetry-for-asl3/24752/3 "2026-07-10T04:51:46Z")
Ya I replaced all the files once in ASL2 and it was great having it faster. I'm not at all interested in the script/steps/issues you mentioned. That would be nice to use a TTS engine and be able to just specify variables like speed, voice, etc. ---
**Author:** ![KK6QMS](https://community.allstarlink.org/user_avatar/community.allstarlink.org/kk6qms/32/1356_2.png) [@KK6QMS](https://community.allstarlink.org/u/KK6QMS)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2026, 11:53pm UTC](https://community.allstarlink.org/t/revisiting-faster-telemetry-for-asl3/24752/4 "2026-07-14T23:53:49Z")
Hey I just found this by accident! ASL3 DOES have ability to access a TTS engine! I don't know if it could be used for telemetry but here is the info for the more proficient users out there to study- [ASL Text-to-Speech - AllStarLink Manual](https://allstarlink.github.io/adv-topics/tts/) I tried it but get a permissions error but don't know where the "running directory" is located- root@ASL48654:/home/kk6qms# sudo -u asterisk asl-tts -n 63001 -t 'Good morning' Unable to access the running directory (Permission denied). Changing to '/' for compatibility. # **ASL Text-to-Speech** ASL provides the `asl-tts` command. This is a text to speech speaker for ASL3. It uses the [piper](https://github.com/rhasspy/piper) open source TTS system that is not dependent on cloud providers and has opensource voice models for dozens of languages. If the `asl-tts` command doesn't exist on your system, you will need to install the `asl3-tts` package: ```auto sudo apt install asl3-tts ``` ## **Basic Operation** `asl-tts` uses the `piper-tts` text to speech engine to generate ulaw files from text so that `Asterisk/apt_rpt` can speak any set of arbitrary text without needing to have a sound file installed for the word necessary. By default, `asl-tts` will cause `app_rpt` to immediately speak whatever text was specified. **asl-tts has a time delay** Running the `piper-tts` system takes a few seconds to compile the voice into the sound file. Larger text blocks may take tens of seconds to compile. `asl-tts` is not appropriate for time-sensitive communications such as speaking the current time. The command format is as follows: ```auto sudo -u asterisk asl-tts -n -t 'TEXT' [-v ] [-f ] ``` The general use case is to speak to a node immediately. This this case speaking the text "Good morning" to node 63001 would look like this: ```auto sudo -u asterisk asl-tts -n 63001 -t 'Good morning' ``` The TTS engine will start, create the audio, and execute the playback on the node. The playback follows normal `app_rpt` rules and will be played back as soon as its turn arrives. The command will not preempt or "talk over" other traffic on the node. Keep in mind the differences between quoting in a shell command. In general, the `"` and `'` work the same but the double-quote will allow variable substitution while the single quote will not. This can be useful if you want to create text based on a system condition. For example: ```auto TODAY=$(date +"%A, %B %d, %Y") sudo -u asterisk asl-tts -n 63001 -t "Today is ${TODAY}" ``` Obviously the above example is a bit contrived as the `date` command doesn't generate nice words such as "first", "seventeenth", etc. However, it demonstrates the flexibility of the tool. A script could be used to populate `$TODAY` with natural words. For a hypothetical example: ```auto TODAY=$(/path/to/today-script) sudo -u asterisk asl-tts -n 63001 -t "Today is ${TODAY}" ``` More complex message can be created with additional shell coding. As an example here's how the current public IP address of the system could be obtained and spoken: ```auto IPADDR=$(wget -q -O - checkip.dyndns.com | grep -Po "[\d\.]+" | sed 's/\./ dot /g') MSG="The node public IP is ${IPADDR}" sudo -u asterisk asl-tts -n 63001 -t ${MSG} ``` A `bash` shell variable can generally hold up to a 2 Mb-sized string so any reasonably-formatted text can be stored in a variable and then played with the `-t` command. Keep in mind that the text or the variable contents must not contain the same quote type used in the command without escaping it with a backslash. For example `"Nested \" mark"`. **Temporary File Cleanups** Note that temporary files are written to directories named `/tmp/asl-tts*` and are not automatically cleaned up because it's impossible to know when Asterisk will actually need/speak the file contents. If this becomes a space problem, put in a `systemd` timer unit or a `cron` job to delete old files in `/tmp/asl-tts*`. The command can simply be `rm -rf /tmp/asl-tts*`. ## **Creating a Sound File for Later** To create the text for other usage, such as cron jobs, use the `-f FILE` option to specify where the file should be created. Do not use an extension, the file will be automatically appended with the `.ul` suffix. For example: ```auto AUD_TEXT="The club net will begin in five minutes!" sudo -u asterisk asl-tts -n 460181 -t "${AUD_TEXT}" -f /tmp/netstartsin5 ``` This will create a sound file `/tmp/netstartsin5.ul` that can be used later with an asterisk playback such as: ```auto asterisk -rx 'rpt playback 63001 /tmp/netstartsin5 ``` Note that `-n` is required but irrelevant to this use case. ## **Voices** By default, the package provides the voice "Amy" from [piper/VOICES.md at master · rhasspy/piper · GitHub](https://github.com/rhasspy/piper/blob/master/VOICES.md) . This voice is the closest voice to the default Asterisk and `app_rpt` sounds ("Allison"). It is possible to download other voices, for any language, and store the `.onnx` and `.onxx.json` files in `/var/lib/piper-tts` and then use them with the `-v` option. For example, to add the English (en\_GB) voice "Alan" from the voices repository: 1. Download the `.onnx` and `.onnx.json` file to `/var/lib/piper-tts` 2. Specify `-v en_GB-alan-low.onnx` on the command line to `asl-tts`. As an example: ```auto sudo -u asterisk asl-tts -n 63001 -v en_GB-alan-low.onnx -t "Good morning" ``` **File Quality** Since all files are squashed down to 8K uLaw format, there is no value in the "medium" or "high" quality models. Always use the "low" quality model.